Matt Eaton - Blank

“Well you still look hale and hearty, General,” Luckman offered, although the man was clearly a shadow of his former self.

Luckman had been under Shearer’s command in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was the man to whom Luckman handed his resignation from the peculiar wing of Army intelligence known as the Overseas Information Service, or OIS. It was also Shearer who had accepted him back into the fold after the twin disasters.

“Take a seat, gentleman,” the General insisted.

“What is it we can do for you General?” Martin asked him.

“I wanted to update you on the China situation and to seek your input.”

“Just the two of us then?” Luckman queried. It seemed strange no other officers were present.

“For now,” the General said. “I’m keeping it among friends for the moment. I’m afraid the situation is deteriorating.”

“Why am I not surprised?” replied Martin.

“We are increasingly becoming the meat in the sandwich. Neither China nor the US appear anywhere close to an admission of responsibility for the Flood. We expect rapid escalation within weeks, maybe even days. Nuclear-scale escalation.”

“That is insane,” spat Luckman.

“The US remains convinced it’s all some mad Chinese plot.”

“What do you think?” Martin asked him.

“I don’t think either country’s responsible. But I won’t go to my grave protesting their innocence. Neither of them can afford to drag this out. They’re at the point where they have little to lose. Both Chinese and American mainlands already face catastrophic nuclear contamination from all the reactors destroyed in the Flood.”

“I can’t believe they’d go to war now,” said Luckman.

“You’re a rational man,” Shearer told him. “But this fight is madness, pure and simple. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister are doing all they can to broker peace, but so much damage has already been done. Fukushima-type meltdowns have been occurring in nuclear power stations across the world. Australia is protected by geographic isolation but we have maybe a year at most before contamination hits our coastline. Other than the prospect of nuclear war, the ocean has become our greatest enemy.”

“What do you need from us?” Martin asked.

“The Prime Minister has ordered all survivor communities to move as far inland as possible. We’re utilising all military aircraft and even looked to use steam trains for transportation where possible. It’ll be slow and messy, but we’ll make do. If we’re going to make it, we’ll have to live far closer to our food sources anyway. At least until we can make some sense of what this all means for rebuilding power grids and economic infrastructure.”

“Rebuilding?” Martin exclaimed. “Six months from now we’re going to be flat out feeding ourselves.”

“I know, I know,” General Shearer demurred. “But Canberra is trying to take an optimistic approach. I can understand that – give people something to hope for. Strange as it sounds, Australia is in a far better position than the rest of the world. Shifting inland does, however, bring another problem into focus.”

“The Blanks,” said Luckman.

“We don’t like to call them that,” said the General. “It’s a tad derogatory. The US calls them captives.”

“With respect General, I’d argue that’s worse. They’re not enemy combatants.”

“They’re not exactly out there helping us out either, are they Captain?” spat Martin.

Luckman ignored him. “Captives, guests, Blanks – whatever you call them, they were our friends and family just a few weeks ago. Treating them as anything else would be a crime against humanity.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Luckman,” the Brigadier exploded, “they’re not human beings any more. I’m sorry General, but I’ve had a gutful of this…”

“Go on, say it,” Luckman demanded. “This black bastard.”

“Both of you calm the hell down,” Shearer demanded.

“It’s what you’re thinking isn’t it?” Luckman yelled.

“Actually, I was thinking more about your greenie leftist agenda. Setting up your own commune and sitting around the campfire. Some of us have bigger problems to deal with.”

“Captain Luckman’s view on the captives is shared by the Prime Minister.”

“Typical,” said Martin. “If we had a Government that knew how to take tough decisions we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it was that cut and dried,” the General warned. “You need to accept that.”

Martin finally nodded reluctantly. “Sir.”

“Look Luckman, allow me to play devil’s advocate,” said Shearer. “The problem is how to care for these poor souls while we’re struggling to survive ourselves.”

“I just don’t understand this whole us-them thing,” Luckman countered. “Most of the Blanks have already died. The ones who are left need our help. Even then, many of them probably won’t make it. Let me take you down to the camp so you can see for yourself.”

“I’ve seen the camps, Captain,” the General replied tersely. “I’ve also seen the state of the nation. We have no infrastructure, no power, virtually no ability to do much more than subsist. Food is going to be an issue. Water is already a problem. It’s going to be tough for people who know how take care of themselves. We are literally staring down the barrel of human extinction. These Blanks of yours outnumber you here by six to one. In Canberra it was 20 to one before they crapped themselves to death. How do we transport them? Can you say for sure they won’t turn on us when rationing gets worse and they don’t understand where the food’s gone?”

Luckman shook his head. “No, I can’t. But we’re nowhere near that point yet.”

“Yet,” Martin repeated.

“I won’t be a party to killing off the weak so the strong survive,” said Luckman. “I’ll take a bullet myself first.”

General Shearer sighed. “That may not be as cruel as you think. Let me give you an analogy: humanity is a wounded animal. One leg is severely fractured and needs to be dealt with. But there are no doctors, no medicines, only a sword. The leg won’t mend itself but without drastic action the animal will die. Meanwhile the hunter is still out there and the animal needs to keep moving. Surely in this instance amputation is the lesser of two evils.”

“But see that’s where the argument falls down,” Luckman returned. “Talk to the guys on the ground down there and they tell you the Blanks are capable of amazing things. They are like idiot savants. Their learning capacity is off the scale. We can teach them what it is to be human again. We are teaching them. And if we give up on that, then surely we’ve already lost the battle to save ourselves.”

Shearer raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps we could train them as labourers. Any thoughts there, Captain?”

He was talking about slave labour, but Luckman swallowed his disgust. There was no question manual labour was sorely needed. “It’d be better than killing them,” he agreed.

“Could we teach them quickly enough?”

“That I can’t answer,” Luckman admitted.

Shearer paused for a second. He appeared to have come to a decision. “Thank you, Captain. Your views have been noted.”

Luckman felt power and status radiating from every rivet of General Shearer’s Challenger as he climbed slowly up the executive jet’s front stairs and entered the plush wood and leather interior. It was dark after the brightness of the tarmac and felt rather like going backstage to meet a rock star. Canberra’s ruling class were obviously keen to keep up appearances and it seemed the General’s standard of living was yet to take a hit from all that had befallen the rest of the world. He wondered whether Shearer took all this for granted.